Before they started, Aristophanes the Acarnanian Strategus arrived with the full levy of his people. For having in former times suffered many severe injuries at the hands of the Aetolians, they were now inspired with a fierce determination to be revenged upon them and damage them in every possible way: they gladly therefore seized this opportunity of getting the help of the Macedonians; and the men who now appeared in arms were not confined to those forced by law to serve, but were in some cases past the military age. The Epirotes were quite as eager to join, and for the same motives; but owing to the wide extent of their country, and the suddenness of the Macedonian arrival, they had not been able to muster their forces in time. As to the Aetolians, Dorimachus had taken half their army with him, as I have said, while the the other half he had left at home, thinking that it would be an adequate reserve to defend the towns and district against unforeseen contingencies. The king, leaving a sufficient guard for his baggage, started from Limnaea in the evening, and after a march of sixty stades pitched his camp: but, having dined and given his men a short rest, he started again; and marching right through the night, arrived just as the day was breaking at the river Achelous, between the towns of Stratus and Conope, being anxious that his entrance into the district of Thermus should be sudden and unexpected.